Scottish ski industry optimistic despite poor season

For the last few years, summer has tended to be a time for celebration – or at least cautious optimism – within the Scottish ski industry, as it’s when the five ski centres traditionally release their combined “skier days” statistic for the previous season. This key number, much pored over by anyone and everyone with a stake in the continuing good health of Scotland’s snowsliding sector, gives us the total number of ski sessions recorded at CairnGorm, Glenshee, Glencoe, The Lecht and Nevis Range, from the first spine-tingling snows of autumn to the final sun-drenched turns of late spring, and as such it’s a useful measure for what kind of season it’s been overall. It doesn’t tell anything like the full story of the season just gone – more on that in a moment – but in general, a high number means it’s been a good year and a low number means it’s been a bad year; and since the ridiculously snowy 2009/10 season, which saw a total of 374,789 skier days recorded, the numbers have mostly been encouraging.